Page 147 of What Doesn't Kill Her

Someone whistled in appreciation.

“Right now?” Max’s lips moved against hers. “We haven’t cut the cake.”

“Tohellwith the cake.”

“I knew it from the first moment I met you. You are the woman of my dreams.” He kissed her, long and slow, ready to take up his husbandly duties the moment they were alone.

Max didn’t realize that Daniel Lykke hadn’t lived to complete his dream of taking control of Lykke Industries, but he had fulfilled his desire to harm her; he had slammed her to the floor one too many times. Something was wrong with her. She suspected he had moved the bullet in her brain, for the edges of reality had become fuzzy and gray, like a camera with Vaseline rubbed around the edge of the lens.

But how did she tell Max that, on this day when he had married her and their daughter was safe from threat?

“Look!” he said. “The dead arises!”

At the fringe of the crowd, Nils Brooks stood, head bandaged, eyes bloodshot, looking as if...as if he’d been racked and beaten all in one day.

“He’s not having a good time,” Kellen observed.

“I know!” Max sounded fierce. “He deserves every ache and pain. I trusted him to guard Rae, and he screwed up.”

“He really is a good fighter.” She watched as one of the tiny Di Luca boys toddled over and embraced Nils’s leg with sticky hands. Nils picked up the child and grinned at him, then relinquished him to his laughing mother. “He likes kids, Rae bosses him around, and he took his eye off the ball.”

“You’re too forgiving.”

Kellen met Nils’s gaze.

For the first time since she’d known him, he looked sorry and embarrassed. He dipped his head in apology.

“I am too forgiving. But I keep thinking... I will never let him live this down.”

“I’ll never let him near you again.”

“Check. No more jobs for Nils Brooks.”

“We should probably have our first dance before we leave. For Rae’s sake.” Max knew what his little daughter liked, and he knew, too, she would miss them while they were vacationing in Italy.

“That sounds like a lovely plan,” Kellen agreed.

In deference to her injuries, Max and Kellen’s first dance was a slow waltz, a wonderful spinning tribute to love that made the guests sigh with pleasure.

Then Zio Federico stepped onto the floor with Rae, and the old man and the child danced in circles around them. Max waved his arm at the family and friends who were watching, and soon dozens of couples waltzed in a burst of rhythmic joy.

Carson and Birdie.

Verona and Arthur.

Temo and Adrian.

Max said, “Zio Federico approves of the splatters on your dress. He wants to know how you created it.”

“What did you tell him?’

“That it was a spontaneous demonstration of creative sophistication.”

She chuckled. “You’re a genius.”

“I know. I’ve got you.”

That fuzziness advanced, the edges of her vision diminished. She slowed. “I’ve begun to think that’s not such a smart thing.”

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